What A Picture is Worth…

I have a ton of pictures from my family. They were avid picture takers throughout the 30’s 40’s and 50’s. Mostly the 40’s and 50’s. I have two huge boxes of photos: Trips, night clubbing, parties, birthdays, black tie affairs. In many a photo, there are a few Mafioso looking gents, which makes sense, as my family was Italian and living in Chicago at the time. Oh, yes, and they knew people who were in the Mafia – there’s always THAT fact contributing to the scenery, as well.

With all of these amazing photos, all of these interesting events, you would think I’d have a wall of photos in my home, practically overlapping each other. But this is not the case.

On my desk is a single frame – a small four-photo strip, actually. It houses four photos that my mother and step-father took in a photo booth on one of their first dates. They smile in the camera, laughing, and share a kiss.

They’re both gone, now. Sadly, they were both taken early, from rather silly things – total flukes, if you ask me.

But of all the photos that I have, of all my family, I share in this memory. It’s not foreign. It’s not difficult to figure out where they are and what was happening. I may have been off at my grandparents at the time, or dropped off at a friend’s house. I don’t know the exact time of the picture – but I know this: My mother and step-father were very happy. She missed him dearly when he left the planet early in 1997 – As I missed her when she left later in that very same year. So silly – they each passed at 51 years old.

With any old photo, you look at it and marvel at all the lives involved – people that you may not even know – Perhaps you see it on the internet, or in a restaurant – total strangers to you, yet they were all important to someone. They all had families, they worked, perhaps brought up children and touched the lives of those around them.

These two touched my life. If no one else knows – I do.

Side note: My mother swore that there was a picture of her as a child, sitting in Al Capone’s lap. REALLY wish I could find that one…